Gigabyte board has a Jmicron controller, atleast according to its driver, heck it has the same chip as msi board ;)

"I'm still not sold on the utility of integrated graphics in a mid-range motherboard, and I wish Asus had used a better audio codec."

Not everyone is an gamer. I was atracted to AMD plataform mainly because that integrated graphics chipset "for free", that is an good upgrade from my Geforce 6100. I preffer to use the $60 on an better motherboard, or other components, than an graphic card. If the GPGPU hype lives up in the future, I may still buy an good PCI-E GPU more optimized for that.

So, they got at least one consumer because of that.

Props for a well done review. Now that the Phenom II X4 955 is out, it would be nice to see the MSI board in that review, or better yet the X4 955 in this review. I disagree that price seems mostly to be the overriding factor. But I'm comparing getting a server board like the TYAN S2915 and a couple of 2.3 GHz Shanghai's versus say the Phenom II X4 955 and a DDR3 motherboard. Seems to me that the price of the MSI is more than fair considering the better expandability and better peripheral performance. Besides, I could get two of them for what the server would cost and still have change left over. I have this weakness for dual CPU boards. I've been using a dual MP 2600 board all this time. Its about time for an upgrade.

I'm wondering: is the high CPU load for AHCI on the SB750 such a problem with a 3-core CPU ? Should I much care about 30% use of one core, ie 10% use of the 3 cores ?

I was really surprised to see that the Jetway performed so well..... they had it in spades over everyone else in price.

that the board lacks polish isn't really a concern to me personally...... once a computer is built and tweaked those settings are done and you live with the system from that point onward so "polish" has virtually no value.

I'm still leary of Jetway but if they can place well in another motherboard review I'll take a chance using one in a personal system to see how it works, the integrated Asus audio performance kills it as an option so I'd be going for the Gigabyte 1st.

good job Jetway with solid USB and serial perf if your company can get a Windows based flash utility going and offer robust bios support to fix issues or simply release a bios that works without issue you'll get the nod.

When did gigabyte decide it was a good idea to cover the fins on a heatsink? I've noticed that they've been doing this recently. You put fins on a heatsink to take advantage of airflow. Sure it probably doesn't make much of a difference but it still looks dumb.

hey guys i forgot to mention that maybe TR did an error in the last page. phenom 2 940 is not and am3 but an am2+ version . i guess they wanted to mention phenom 2 x810 / x910 or something and they messed up.

I don't understand all the whining about AMD support for AHCI. I have AHCI working flawless with Windows XP on ASUS M3A78-T (SB750) mobo. Does the problem exist for other operating systems? There is not such a problem for XP, if you want to know!

Very nice review. It was clearly written and covered all the bases.

I noticed in the overclocking section that overclocking was done only by changing the multiplier. Was it done this way because it is preferable to doing an "FSB" overclock in some way, i.e. does it allow higher clocks or provide the same performance while being easier? Or is it just the fact that it is so easy to OC that way?

Geoff, I still don't understand your unease with IGP on midrange and higher boards. Do you have any reasons why it is a bad thing to have?

I was all excited. I thought it was an article about 4 socket boards, not 4 boards....

One last comment:

I'm starting to get the upgrade itch. My x2-3600 on a 690G mobo is still doing everything I need, but I am getting the itch none the less. Maybe I'll save up to upgrade my core components to a DDR3 based platform, wait for the i5 to launch, and pull the trigger when the dust settles. Now having said all of that, I won't be getting a AMD chipset mobo unless it has fully functional AHCI, so hey, AMD, how bout you get that issue sorted out, finally, please? Cause it's either i7, i5, or Ph2, and right now your AHCI crappiness is taking the Ph2 out of the running.

i was going to go for the PII 920 when newegg had it for $134 a week or two ago, but i just could not find a decent motherboard with the layout that i wanted. i'd say 99.9% of the AM2+ and AM3 were all based on the same reference board type. all seemed to have way too many PCI slots and too many legacy connections and no incentives. Some even have a parallel port! lol!

Right now, i am waiting for the SB800 / RD890 chipset to come out, but am afraid that the pricing might drive me to intel's x58...yet again.

Good review. I completely agree $180 is too much to spend for the target market for the CPUs it supports. I still have yet to spend more than about $140 on a motherboard ever, though I rarely early adopt platforms.

I can't say I'm terribly impressed by any of the boards here. Asus seems to have cut corners on cooling, though perhaps I'm overemphasizing the unimportant. Their audio also seems subpar for what we normally expect as well, which is disappointing. I've long decided to stop giving Creative Labs money and have been pretty happy to use a "free" Realtek solution. Perhaps I'd never really notice running through even a "premium" $250 set of Logitech computer speakers, though. I hardly do any critical listening on my computer.

Asus BIOS is good, no surprises. I am also a fan (*groan*) of their closed loop controls for fan speed. The canned modes do a good job of covering basic needs even if you don't get to exactly define the function. I think I basically have the same thing in my P5Q Pro, which seems like a fairly close analog to this board, minus the iffy Via audio codec and cheap cooling. Only thing I'd wish for is more independent channels with their own temp probes. My board offers only two, one for the CPU using the CPU's own temp probe, and one for the system temperature. It'd be great to see a 3rd channel with a thermister lead I could tape to one of my hard drives that drove one of the 3pin headers near the front of the board, for instance.

If only Jetway could use the same BIOS as Asus I think it would be a killer board. I was impressed with how well the cheap board did in the benchmarks. It's looks like it may still be a contender if you aren't intending to overclock.

Answer me if im wrong but Jetway was the most consistent board about CPU utilization while testing USB, SATA and Ethernet, without a drop on performance. I really dont know wich is this brand, but, I guess that instead judge by the ugly software or non friendly bios, it's an awsome board for just 110$. I would get this one instead asus not only for price.

Jetway:
In order to get 16 lanes of bandwidth running to the primary x16 slot, you need to insert an included switch card into the secondary slot, rendering it useless.

but...

Asus:
...thanks to PCIe 2.0's higher signaling rate, the bandwidth available is equivalent...

So, does performance suffer on the Jetway significantly without the switch card, if 8 lanes doesn't mean as much on the Asus board (in Xfire, no less)?

I'd love to ask you for a single game bench, testing with and without the x16 switch card on the Jetway. I'm willing to gamble that it doesn't make a difference in performance.

test test test

Nice to see AMD boards that don't look like toddler toys, like so many seem to have in the AM2/2+ class.

Pity the SB750 is so iffy (like everyone else said...)

I would have liked a review of the Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P.

Does anyone if the Zalman 9500 coolers for AMD work on the AM3 Socket?

The price premium for a 4xPCIex16 is well worth it for those interested in that (e.g. tri/quad display or 3/4 card crossfire or for mega-folding etc.).
Of course for most people, 2xPCIex16 is all they need.
I agree that this compares boards from different ranges. Car analogy (I k now we all secretly love them!) would be Porche GT3 vs Chevy camaro. Porche has midrange vehices (e.g. boxster) and Chevy have high range vehicles (e.g. ZR1)
edit: oops - suppose to be a reply for #27

Nice review Geoff. Well-done. I really wish we would see more the ALC889A codec.

However, the chip's storage controller is largely unchanged since the old SB600, and its AHCI support has never quite worked right.

And there is the key point of this review, only in my opinion of course.

Storage performance is the current bottleneck in modern computing; a quick read of the SSD articles proves this point.

So until AMD can put a proper storage controller on their systems I will continue to use NVIDIA chipsets with their CPU's. The GF8200 & 8300 work just fine as long as the proper board supports Phenom II's and the consumer is willing to use DDR2 rather than DDR3. Personally, I think using DDR2 in exchange for functioning AHCI is worth it.

What I don't understand: Apparently, one of those features that enthusiasts apparently covet, is having dual gigabit ethernet ports. I don't get it. Why?

I guess what I'm trying to say is...

...yes Gigabyte, I would've rather you did away with one of those ethernet ports, and simply put eSATA back there...

I guess there's one other thing that would be good to point out wrt various 790GX and 790FX motherboards. If you do a search on Newegg for those two chipsets you'll see that the big 3 in this article (not Jetway) offer a range of motherboards - Asus has a few $180 790FX motherboards, Gigabyte has a $130 790GX mobo for example. I understand TR reviews products they are sent and reviewing a range of motherboards is great. It may have been smart of Asus to send their mid-range priced 790GX but these motherboards aren't exactly direct competitors. It would have been nice to see that mentioned in the article.

I'm kind of curious why the Asus got a recommendation. It seems to be based upon just oc'ing at lower vcore and price? The peripheral performance is weak. Reading the review it seems like either none of these should be recommended or that they should be recommended for different reasons and the buyer can choose their priorities.

You know, I honestly though this was about motherboards with four sockets. Now I'm disappointed. :-/

It's always good to see articles on motherboards. They're not as sexy as CPUs and GPUs, but they're pretty damn important :)

EDIT: is there any chance of TR doing a roundup of the major non-intel IGPs? There's next to no good info on them.

Nice article! Been waiting for this ever since you mentioned it in the last podcast.

QQ though, in the conclusion you say, "However, both are high-end boards for a processor lineup that lacks high-end parts. The Phenom II X3 720 and X4 940 are the only Socket AM3 chips I'd consider recommending, and neither needs a $180 motherboard."

I don't think the X4 940 works in an AM3 mobo. It's AM2+. Or is there another 940 out there I don't know about?

Oh, sweet. Off to read.

well according to the rumors i have herd so far , AMD plans to introduce RD890 and RS 880 chipsets so i guess ill wait for them . according to the rumors i have seen spreading about the specifications of these chipsets they rock and they will be will be out in q2 or q4 of this year. i guess ill wait for it to release and may be by this time 6 core desktop version of istanbul might come out.... guess ill have to wait and watch .

note:- search TR for the rumors of these chipsets.

Nice review!
Not sure about the conclusion as the ASUS did have some noteable flaws. And it isn't in the same category as the higher end AM3 ASUS boards like the M4A79T.
Also for the ASUS, does it have some sort of automatic voltage increase when OCing (like I've seen on my older ASUS board)?
For price, there is also the ASRock M3A790GXH ($115 on newegg)
Also the DFI LP DK 790FXB looks interesting (3 x PCIex16)